Friday, 8 June 2012

In the chill of late January, around the time Chinese were
celebrating the Lunar New Year, the police chief of this foggy south-western
metropolis pressed Bo Xilai, the ambitious Communist Party official who ruled
the area, with evidence that Mr. Bo’s wife had been involved in a murder.

There has long been debate about what is the right number of
seats on the Politburo Standing Committee, and some sources say the leadership
has recently reached a consensus on reducing this from nine to seven.

Wednesday, 6 June 2012

Jerome A. Cohen says the outcome of one of China’s key
challenges in the next stage of its development - the moulding of a society
ruled by law - may well hinge on the selection of security chief Zhou
Yongkang’s successor

Beijing has major Macau casinos in its sights as it seeks
hard evidence of bribery and money laundering amid a snowballing investigation
into a senior banker and a secretive businessman on the mainland.

On the eve of his first visit to China as Australia’s
Defence Minister yesterday, Mr. Stephen Smith was forced to deal with the
embarrassing revelation that his country’s 30-year security blueprint included
a secret plan for war with China.

Tuesday, 5 June 2012

"People like us who buy Ferraris don't care too much about insurance
because we buy cars for speeding," said Li, in his twenties and the son
of a Pearl River Delta factory owner, as he took delivery of a new 5
million yuan ($787,500) 458 Spider, his fourth red Ferrari. "If we
crash, we just throw them away."

The giant orange robotic arms that swiftly weld together car
frames at the Great Wall Motors factory in Baoding might seem like the perfect
answer to China's fast-rising labour costs - they don't ask for a raise, get
injured or go on strike.

In March of 2010, I met Nick Bartman twice in Beijing to
talk about wine and intellectual property rights (IPR) in China. At that time,
Bartman was investigating the scale of IPR infringements, including fake wines,
in China and had started The Wine Protection Group in an effort to get major
industry players to pool their resources.

I am publishing this post, dear reader, because I believe
that Singaporeans place too much trust in our mainstream media to deliver “the
truth”. It really irks me that Singapore’s media keeps patting itself on the
back, when it suffers from several problems, not least a pro-government bias.
So, I have decided to show six very clear examples of poor journalism. Each one
is different, but together they highlight everything that is wrong with our
media. Please scroll to the middle of this post to see them. Or, if you permit
some preliminary yakking, then read on here….

The first trip abroad in more than two decades by Myanmar’s
opposition leader, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, appears to have strained her crucial
relationship with President U Thein Sein, who is leading the country’s
transformation from military dictatorship to embryonic democracy.

In tropical waters off the coast of the Philippines, a
standoff between half a dozen Chinese fishing boats, two Chinese law
enforcement vessels and an aging Philippine Navy ship recently attracted a lot
of attention in Washington, Beijing and other capitals across Asia.

Part of his role as a lecturer at the Beijing University of
Agriculture has Li Demei casting his eye over how the wine industry in China is
developing, and he said Thursday he thought that, in the forseeable future at
least, the country would continue to rise as an importer of wines rather than
an exporter.

It's one of the rarest and most expensive cars in the world and the favourite marque of British superspy 007 James Bond.
The top-of-the-range racer has a massive 750 horsepower and a top speed of more than 320km/h.
It is thought to be owned by a mainlander, and has a list price in the UK of £1.4 million (HK$16.7 million).
Only 77 of the One-77 model have been built and they have all been sold, making the car one of the most sought-after on the planet.
A spokesman at Aston Martin's headquarters in Britain confirmed that an Aston Martin One-77 crashed in Hong Kong.
"This type of supercar is made for the track, not for normal road use," he said. "Many drivers who buy them can't handle the car, as it has too much horsepower for them.
"They don't have the skills or experience to control them. It's more than likely this was the reason behind this crash."

A group of Austrians whose scenic mountain village has been
copied down to the statues by a Chinese developer attended yesterday’s opening
in China for the high-end residential project. But they were still miffed about
how the firm did it.